Same Old Story
by Earthcat123
Summary: When Vert's sister, Ronnie, shows up out of the blue, it causes nothing but problems for the team who try to keep Battle Force Five a secret. Everything changes, however, when Ronnie comes face to face with the Vandals, and Vert realizes the only way to keep his sister safe. Rated T for Vandal/Sark fight scenes.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't really know when this story's set; somewhere towards the end of season 2, with Tezz and AJ and all the bad guys too (Zemerik, Kalus, Krytus etcetera). So if I get something wrong, that's because I'm not really sticking to continuity, I'm just taking the bits I want. There isn't much happening in this chapter anyway; the fun starts in chapter 2…**

**So yeah, I don't own anything, and any references to events (like the USA JSC for example) are completely made up and probably don't actually exist. And I have next to no mechanical knowledge whatsoever, so please don't eat me for getting details wrong. But other than that, read and enjoy!**

**Chapter One**

The vast salt flats of Handler's Corners stretched out ahead of the magenta handlebars and she pulled the throttle, unleashing the full speed of the custom-built motorbike into the afternoon sun. She had some fond memories of this place. Many of her childhood years had been spent racing through the flat, featureless desert, not breaking the law since driving out there didn't seem to have any. That was the only thing she regretted moving out into the big city for. The speed, and the freedom to kick out as much of it as possible.

She waved cheerily at the black and white police car that had always sat somewhere in the middle of the flats, wondering to herself if it was still Sheriff Johnson sitting behind the wheel. Probably. Things didn't tend to change a lot around here. The car was a marker that her fun was almost up, a marker confirmed by the huge plastic pizza that stuck out above Zeke's Diner. She was nearly out of track. Yanking the bars hard to the right, the engine gave out a cough, reminding her why she was taking this detour in the first place, and she made a mental note to stop off for some pizza, pie and a milkshake on her way home. That should be just in time for dinner anyway; she wasn't planning on staying long.

Finally it came into sight; the Spectra Motors Hangar; her destination. More commonly known as the Wheeler Garage, although the faded sign over the front of the impressively build building still read the former. The exterior was where she recalled the impressiveness ending, and unless her brother had recently had a change of heart, it would still be that way. Her bike rolled her right up to the doors before finally fulfilling its promise and giving out, which she had been worried of it's doing since about ten miles before the salt flats. It was slightly spooky how often it did that; getting her exactly where she wanted to go before ceasing to function; but she wasn't going to question it in a hurry. She'd had the bike for somewhere near ten years, although had only been able to ride it for the last five and none of the parts were the same anymore. Really she needed a new one, but she couldn't bring herself to part with it. That was one of the reasons why she was where she was: standing in front of her brother's garage armed with a wrench and some nacho cheese potato chips.

She wasn't sure if she had been expecting a response to the loud announcement of her arrival. There was no reason why her brother wouldn't be home, but at the same time, she didn't think she actually wanted to see him. They hadn't spoken in three years, since she, their mother and the youngest of the three siblings had moved to the city. She didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know if he would even recognise her.

When the banging on the door and her shouting of "Hey, Vert, open up!" produced no response, she strode over to the keypad lock with a smile on her face. She would have the place to herself, for a while at least. It was amazing, really, how he hadn't even changed the code to the front door. It wouldn't surprise her if every one of the fifty people living in the area knew what it was, and so having it there in the first place was utterly pointless. But that was Vert, she supposed. He liked to keep things around for sentimental value.

The inside was precisely as she remembered it. Oil stains on the floor, an assortment of tools hanging on the walls with even more empty gaps where the ones lying around on workbenches should have been, dust coating everything. Something did strike her as slightly odd though. She tried to shrug off the feeling, but it kept on coming back to her as she pushed the now defunct motorcycle into her preferred corner of the workshop. As she took one last look around, it hit her. There were no pizza boxes, no soda cartons, none of those quirky little boxes Zeke served his speciality pie in. The dust on the floor; and everything else for that matter; was thick, and no vehicle had driven through it in at least... a year? Maybe two? She frowned. Why would Vert abandon the garage? Not only had no vehicle not been through it in years, not a single footprint besides her own had been made in the slightly yellow covering, and the air, she noticed, was stale, like the door hadn't even been opened in that whole time. Briefly she thought that he had moved away, but if that had been the case, why would he leave all his tools? It just didn't make sense. But there was nothing she could do about it before the Rustbucket was fixed. She would drive over to Zeke's later and ask a few questions there.

Four hours, seven packets of chips and many alterations later, she stood up to survey her handiwork. She had done a good job, even though she needed a new catalytic converter for the exhaust, and while technology had moved on, the specs for her bike had not, and getting one to fit the system would be next to impossible. She wondered if it was worth completely re-fitting the engine. Not now, though. Her stomach informed her in a loud protest that the visit to Zeke's she had been promising it was long overdue, and she scooped her helmet off a work surface, sweeping the dust off from where it had been in contact. It, like everything else she was wearing and owned, was a rather pleasant shade of magenta, or "raspberry," as people tended to incorrectly call it. She had always liked that colour, and had even tried at one stage to acquire bike parts to match. Unfortunately she had had to give that one up since doing so made the repair process even more difficult, but wherever she could, she liked to try. Dropping the helmet onto her head she swung up onto her faithful steed and sped out of the garage.

The drive took only ten minutes on borderline speed limit, and she was surprisingly the only occupant of the parking lot. She remembered it always being the busiest around seven PM. The whole place was starting to feel like a ghost town. Fortunately, the inside of Zeke's was exactly the same as it had always been; bright, well-lit and cheerful with its green seats and low-hanging spotlights. The man himself, unchanged since her last visit, sat at the counter, eyes fixed on the TV behind him playing some old alien-hunter series that was probably only six months away from being in black and white. She remained unnoticed until reaching the counter, whereupon Grace, another completely unchanged face in this town, swung the backroom door open and floated in, mop in hand. Her face lit up as she saw her.

"Well look at what the cat dragged in!" Leaning the mop against the counter, Grace ran towards her and enveloped her in a hug, attracting Zeke's attention at the same time. The two had been best friends as children, and Grace was possibly the only resident of Handler Corners she had kept up communications with.

"Well if it ain't little Ronnie Wheeler," the proprietor beamed. "I haven't seen you around here in... well almost three years."

"Three years and four weeks. Not that I'm counting."

"Come on, take a seat. What can I get you? The usual?"

"You still remember that?" she grinned, sliding onto one of the bar stools in front of the only large booth table in the diner. Her favourite seat.

"You ordered it once a day, every day since you were old enough to get on that bike of yours and drive down here," Zeke reminded her, turning away and setting about preparing her food.

"You still driving the Rustbucket?" Grace asked, returning to mopping the floor.

"Yeah, she's parked outside right now. That's the reason I'm here, actually; the exhaust system clogged about ten miles out. I was supposed to just be passing on an errand for mom but I figured a day can't make much of a difference."

"Why don't you stick around? It's still as uneventful around here as ever but there've been a couple of new faces over the years."

"Maybe, I dunno. Depends. Speaking of faces, is Vert still around?"

"Yeah, 'course. Actually, it's about the time they all pile in and grab pizza; give it a few more minutes and they'll all be here."

"They?"

"Vert and all his friends. Two years back five of them appear suddenly as Spectra's new test drivers, and then a little more recently two more showed up. They all hang at the Spectra hangar; they have a whole track out there and everything."

"That's funny. When I was over there just now the whole place looked deserted."

"Well I can't explain that one. The eight of them show their faces for an hour or so every day and then disappear back to the hangar. But they're cool. And I don't know how they built those cars they've got..." Grace trailed off, and Ronnie greeted her pizza with a roll of her eyes and a slight chuckle. She would get to the bottom of this eventually. If she stayed long enough. Which she was tempted not to do now that Grace mentioned it. She sighed to herself and took a bite, removing about half the pizza slice and swallowing with only three quick chews.

"So what else is new?"

"Well," Zeke interrupted Grace, "I have a feeling that brother of yours and all his friends are in league with the aliens." He said it with such conviction, such honesty, that Ronnie couldn't help herself. The splutter just slipped out; the eagerness in his eyes had been priceless.

"You may laugh young lady, but I'm telling you, there's been some funny business going on around here since you left. Mark my words, you stay here long enough and you'll see for yourself."

It had been a slow day, Vert reflected as he slid the Saber into his space in Zeke's parking lot. Come to think of it, it had been a slow week. There had been no news on Krytus, they'd gone through every training practise in the book, and everyone was getting bored and restless. Well, almost everyone. Tezz, who didn't seem capable of not exercising his enormous brainpower, was attempting to design a device that would connect to Sage's telepathic abilities and amplify them, making them better able to find Krytus and the reds. Or at least, that's what Vert thought he'd said. He tended not to ask anymore, for fear of the unnecessary albeit inevitable comment about his own mental inferiority. To be honest, though, he didn't actually know what the guy was saying half the time, so these probably weren't far from the truth. The rest of the team, though, were a different story.

"I'm telling you, Stanford, one more obnoxious remark about your "good" looks, and I will personally see to it that no one will ever think you attractive ever again," Agura threatened. He had been boasting about it for the last three hours; an event that usually occurred after talking to or about his brother, Simon.

"She'll do it," Spinner remarked.

"I'm only pointing out that my dear brother is sorely mistaken when he claims to be the better of the two of us," Sanford justified. "Besides, he's more obnoxious than me, too."

"If that were even possible," Sherman muttered. AJ laughed in his wild, cackling way, and Stanford glared.

"Just because you don't appreciate..."

Vert sighed and ignored them all. He climbed lazily out of the Saber's cockpit, looking absent-mindedly out over the salt flats in an attempt to tune them out completely. As much as he depended on and trusted his team, they really got on his nerves sometimes. He watched the Tangler and Buster pull up next to him, followed by the Reverb, Splitwire and Gearslammer. Finally, the Chopper skidded to a stop in the end bay, next to an old-yet-new motorcycle that looked like it had parts dating back to his dad's day. He frowned at it. It was vaguely familiar...

"What?" Zoom appeared at his shoulder, following his gaze. "You look like you're trying to decipher one of Tezz's programme codes."

"A feat that wouldn't be possible without a supercomputer and an enormous amount of data files," the Russian said, matter-of-factly. Zoom rolled his eyes.

"I know that bike from somewhere," Vert muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

"Wait, you serious? Of course you've seen that bike somewhere. That's the bike Lucinda Demorney won the USA Junior Stunt Cycle Challenge on last year. Borrowed it off a friend for the finals after hers was completely trashed in the semis." Zoom leapt up and raced towards the bike. "No one thought she could do it because it looked like it was held together by duct tape and glue, but she aced it! Won by miles, too."

"Fascinating story, but can we go eat now?" Stanford almost yawned. Zoom shot him a murderous glare.

"Don't diss. This bike's over forty years old."

That's when it clicked. Vert realised that he did know who the bike's owner was, and not from watching the JSC. That was his sister's bike, the one their dad had given her at the age of seven. He'd meant it as a sort of joke; there was no way the thing could've been driveable at the time; but Ronnie hadn't seen it that way. She'd tinkered, repaired and bartered for parts for five whole years until the engine functioned again and the framework actually stayed together when it was running, and she'd kept it that way ever since. He hadn't recognised it immediately because it had been three since he'd last seen it, and it looked like she'd done some serious work on it since. That meant...

That meant Ronnie was back in town.

"Hey Vert, you coming?" Zoom called from the Diner's front door.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. 'Course." he shrugged himself off the Saber and jogged over to join the rest of the team, most of whom had already set themselves up at their usual table. Hopefully, Vert thought, Ronnie had just parked in the Diner and gone off somewhere else, although that was unlikely. There wasn't anything else within a comfortable walking distance. But he could hope. It wasn't that he didn't want to see his sister, he just didn't want to have to explain everything, or rather the cover stories they'd thought up. He didn't like lying...

No. There was no chance. He'd spotted the magenta leathers as soon as he'd set foot through the door.

"Oh, and there he is," Grace announced; they'd been talking about him. Great. Slowly, Ronnie turned, and fixed Vert with a stare no more friendly than his own.

"Veronica," he said as a form of greeting.

"Vert," she responded just as coolly.

"What're you doing here?"

"Just passing through. I needed some supplies so I used the garage. Hope you don't mind."

This was getting better and better. She'd been in the garage, seen how empty it was. She'd want explanations. "Of course not." he sighed, dropping the hard face. "Ronnie, we need to talk..."

"Yeah, we do." she slid off her stool and scooped up her pizza box. "Thanks, Zeke, and see you around." With these farewells she made her way out of the diner and to her bike before speeding out down the flats. Reluctantly, Vert followed her out. She'd go back to the garage; at least there they could talk in peace. As he swung the door shut behind him he could heard a "Well that was sufficiently awkward," from Spinner, but then again, it could also have been his imagination.

**Thanks for reading! Like I said, I've got some awesome stuff planned for chapter two, but that might not appear for a while, I have exams. But I hope you liked. Let me know what you thought by leaving a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Well **_**finally **_**I have gotten off my butt and written this thing. Sorry for the hideous amount of time taken, everyone, but it seems to be a re-occurring theme with me. As usual, I would like to thank my reviewers for their wonderfully supportive comments: **queen of games**, **Kgirl1**, **BF5DBlover** and **shejams**, and a special thanks to **BF5DBlover **for sending me a PM and telling me (in far nicer words, obviously) to get in gear and write some more. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Chapter Two**

"Maybe it was his girlfriend," Spinner crooned in an irritatingly pathetic voice.

"I don't think so big bro," Sherman replied. "Did you see the way they were glaring at each other?"

"Well possibly it's his ex-girlfriend. They do have a habit of holding grudges," Stanford supplied.

"And you'd know all about that, would you?" Agura contended.

"Ha hah," was Stanford's usual sarcastic response.

"Vert doesn't have a girlfriend, anyway. We'd all know about it if he did." Zoom deduced.

"You sure? I mean, we don't know who this mystery girl is, so in theory she could be anyone." Agura responded, sceptical as always. Tezz sighed inwardly, knowing that such a gesture would be received by the com system had it been uttered out loud. He detested occasions such as this, when the entire team was attempting to figure out something that was, really, painfully simple.

"She's his sister," he finally announced, when he could take their bickering no longer. "If you notice the similarities in the face structure and hair colour, added to the fact that her eyes were the same shade of green as Vert's father's; a genetic anomaly that only occurs between direct blood relations; it's obvious. They're siblings."

"He's right," AJ pointed out. Of course he was right. He was always right. "I knew Vert before you guys; I met his sister a couple of times too. She moved up to the city with his mom and their little brother Jeremy about three years back. I haven't heard from or of her since."

"And you didn't tell us that from the beginning because..?"

"Just like to keep you guessing, Stanford."

That did it. As soon as he got back to the Hub, he was going to finish his algorithm that would silence his com system completely, only to activate it when his name was mentioned. Why he hadn't thought of it sooner was beyond him. For now, though, he would just have to tune it out. It was easier said than done on some occasions.

"...want to know is, why did he never mention it? He has two siblings? I didn't even know he had any family at all."

"Stanford, people don't have to tell you everything, you know."

"Careful AJ, you might burst the little bubble he's been living in all his life."

"Ha ha..."

It was on occasions like this that he wondered why he had agreed to join Battle Force Five in the first place.

Finally, they neared the coordinates of the underground passageways that lead back to the Hub, and without even slowing down, he hit the button on his in-car computer that activated the doors. The sooner he was out of the Splitwire, the better. Or rather, the sooner everyone else was away from their cars, the better. Radio silence was, he decided, the most blissful thing on Earth.

"Hello, Earth to Tezz?" Spinner's voice, extremely difficult to ignore, ricocheted through his speakers. "Were you listening to a word I just said?"

"Evidently not," was the obvious reply. He rolled to a stop in his space in the Hub.

"Well then I shall repeat. I was challenging you to a video-gaming rematch. I've finally beaten your high score; I dare you to master it."

"Another time, Spinner. I have work to do now."

"HA! I told you he was too chicken!" the older Cortes brother practically jumped out of the Buster in victory, before proceeding to moonwalk around it humming in glee. Wearily, Tezz climbed out of the Splitwire, rolled his eyes in complete despair, earning a quiet snigger from Zoom, and strode towards Sage at the computer bank in the centre of the Hub.

"Any update on the location of Krytus?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Negative. Although, I did find the location of the odd sock Stanford lost in the laundry last month."

"The events of the day have been equally tedious from my own perspective," he agreed.

"What has Spinner to be so pleased about?"

"I..."

"He chickened out of my death-match video gaming challenge, thereby acknowledging that I am the superior player!" Spinner sounded like he was about to explode due to sheer happiness. Tezz waited for him to dance his way after the others into the rec area before providing his own, more accurate response.

"I saved him public humiliation. I can understand why that is pleasing to his underdeveloped mind." He glanced sideways at Sage as she giggled, trying to hide it with her hand. He gave a one-sided smile in return. Another thing he would never understand: The need for humour. People could get on just as well without it. Better, probably. But that was just one of those things he would have to put up with.

"Do you mind if I use this station?"

"Of course not. Please don't shut down anything; I'm running a multiverse-wide sensor sweep in an attempt to track down the respawn chambers."

"Any success?"

"None so far."

"I will keep you updated." As she floated off into the Moby, Tezz smiled to himself. Quiet. At last. He liked it quiet. He could concentrate better when it was quiet.

With a groan he realised that he had left the specifications of his algorithm in his bedroom on a data pad, and in order to retrieve it he had to go through the rec area. They wouldn't notice him; they'd all be fixed on Spinner defending his title as "Superior Player."

Surprisingly, he was mistaken. They were all in the rec room, and they were all fixated on something, but it wasn't Spinner, or the TV. They were all silent, staring into thin air with vacant expressions on their faces.

"Is this some kind of game I'm not yet aware..."

"Shhh!" Stanford insisted. "We're trying to listen." Tezz frowned. He couldn't hear... Oh, there it was. Sure enough, the muffled voices of Vert and the mystery girl, Veronica, if he remembered correctly, could be heard through the ceiling from the garage above them. Although it was impossible to hear the details of what they were saying, the team seemed intent on finding out. He however, had much better things to do, and with a smirk and data pad in hand, he left the rec room unchallenged.

Unchallenged to the point of exit. No sooner had his foot cleared the doorway, an orange arrow connected with the wall centimetres from his face. Orange arrow. That meant...

"Vandals!" he shouted down to Sage, hoping she was back on the computer. Sure enough he had been correct, and moments later the Intruder Alert blasted through every corridor and storage space the Hub contained. With that and the sound of Captain Kalus' battle horn loud in his ears, he made for the corridor at the other end that lead to the bedrooms. He had just slipped through the door when Vandals began pouring through every other door in the room, surrounding the still unaware team in seconds.

She leaned against the workbench she'd been using not one hour previously as she waited for him to catch up. Was she angry? No, of course not. Would she be in a few more minutes? Well, that was another thing altogether. He had better have one Hell of an explanation for not keeping in contact with the rest of them for two years solid. Her mother had been frantic for the first few months, not even sleeping half the time in the hopes that his letters had simply gotten lost in the mail. She'd gone down to the sorting office herself countless times, just to satisfy her mother's need to know if there was anything waiting for her. Of course, there never was. Eventually they'd all given up.

The sound of his car, sounding as ridiculously overpowered as it looked, finally rose to a climax, and suddenly stopped as he cut the engine. He'd been cruising; she realised, to allow her to get there first. How irritatingly civil of him. She would have loved it, in her own sadistic sort of way, if he'd raced her all the way back. But no. That was a pleasure she would have to save up for another time. The door slid open, casting an eerie beam of golden light onto the pale floor, causing a peculiar mess of the oranges on the floor. It was blocked out for a moment by Vert, still wearing that same old red and white tee, as he stepped inside. He quickly shut the door, and gazed around his own garage as if seeing it for the first time. That did nothing but confirm her suspicions. She folded her arms, and waited for him to speak first.

"So how is everyone?" he asked. Not the beginning she had been expecting. "Did Mom ever get that restaurant started up?"

"She did, actually. But then again, if you'd bothered to keep in touch you'd know that."

Behind her, Vert sighed. "Look, Ronnie, I get that you're mad at me," he said. She bit back her interjection, letting him continue. "But you need to understand something."

"And what is that? What is your fabulous excuse for not talking to your family for two whole years?"

"To be honest I don't really have one. I've been busy. That's all I can say."

"You've been busy. Busy. That's it? That's all you're going to leave me with? Do you know how upset Mother was when she finally realised that you were abandoning her just the same as Dad did? And I don't suppose you even stopped to think about Jeremy. You remember him, right; your little brother? He looked up to you, Vert, like... Oh I don't know. You were like Batman to him!"

"Of course I remember who my family is!" Vert shouted, suddenly angrier than she had ever seen him. His sudden snap made her jump. "Ronnie, you have no idea what's been going on down here since you left. Things have... changed. But I can't tell you why, or how, okay, and that's why I've never written. Because if I did, every word I wrote would be a lie because I can't tell you what's going on in my life. If I hurt you then I'm sorry, but as I recall, you were the ones who left."

"Mother wasn't going to stay here, not with dad's sudden vanishing act, and someone had to go with her to give her a hand. And it sure as Hell wasn't going to be you!" She turned away from him, mainly to hide the tears that had suddenly sprung up out of nowhere, but also a very small part of her wanted to land a punch square on his jaw. They were silent for a long minute.

"I know where he is," Vert finally murmured. She almost didn't know how to respond.

"What? And you didn't think..."

"Let me finish," he cut in. "He showed up about six months back and then vanished again, but he told me where he is, and I have a way of talking to him."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I thought you'd want to know he's still alive."

"Vert, I don't know if you'd noticed, but I gave up on him when he drove off without even saying goodbye."

"I don't believe that."

"Well start believing, because it's true." she sighed and looked away from her brother to stare around the garage. The room was darkening; it was getting late. "Look, I should be going. I need to go pick something up for mom and then get home."

"Stay, Ronnie. At least until morning. It's not safe on the roads around here at night."

"I can't," she decided. Truthfully, she was perfectly capable of staying for months if she wanted to, but she feared that if she became too attached, she would never let go. "I've got stuff to do. Responsibilities, y'know?"

"Okay," Vert accepted. He opened his arms out and raised his eyebrows. Smiling, she stepped into his embrace, willing to forgive him, at least until she got back to the city.

"Are we still good?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she agreed with a sigh. "We're still good."

It was then that the entire garage lit up with blaring red lights, and a woman's voice, over the crescendo of an alarm horn, announced the existence of an intruder in the Hub. Whatever that meant.

Vert immediately pushed her away from him and in no less than three seconds was the other side of the garage.

"Stay here," he shouted back to her. "Don't move!" and disappeared through a door in the back of the garage that she didn't even know existed. In thirty seconds the alarms stopped. She sat on the workbench, fear slowly bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Something was going on, something much bigger than she had ever imagined possible outside of Zeke's 1960s TV shows. Muffled thuds rose up from the floor. Then the sound of car engines, and after a loud struggle that seemed to last half an hour, silence. Looking at her watch she saw that it had really only been ten minutes, but still the silence was painful. She would wait another five, she decided, before investigating. Okay. Three minutes. Two and a half. One. With a sigh, she stood up from the bench. Restlessness had always been her number one weakness. Pulling a flashlight from under the seat of her bike she crept towards the back door, without the slightest clue as to how to proceed. She didn't even know which way Vert had gone. Soon she discovered that this didn't actually matter, for the door lead to about three feet of corridor which then stopped, the back wall curving around in a circle like some kind of elevator. The door slid shut behind her, blackening the room completely. She dropped the flashlight and tried extremely hard not to scream as the elevator, for that's what it was; slid with alarming pace downwards, how far she couldn't tell. When the door sailed open again, it revealed nothing but the eerie outlines of tall, metal structures and peculiar-looking vehicles. The lights had gone out; if there had ever even been any; and the whole place that must have been at least five times the size of the garage upstairs was lit by a dim, blue glow that didn't quite cut it. She shivered. This place was well and truly alien.

Suddenly, an arm snaked around her and clamped a hand firmly over her mouth, causing her to scream louder than she had thought herself capable of. Or at least, it would have been that loud, had the gloved fingers not been tightly pressed against her. She kicked out behind her, panic rising faster than she could quell it, and she began to find that she couldn't quite get enough air into her lungs. She fought against the arm wildly, struggling and wriggling in the way that only a desperate girl really can, and ended up sprawled across the floor with her captor crouching over her, almost sitting on her, with his hand still, irritatingly, over her mouth. His other had made a fist and was holding one finger up to his own mouth in a sign that told her to shut up. A pair of dark eyes almost glared at her from beneath an equally dark side fringe. She recognised him; he was one of the kids with Vert in the diner earlier that evening. She stopped trying to get away from him and relaxed, forcing herself to control her breathing and defying every impulse her body was giving her to run. Without taking his eyes off hers, he slowly lifted his hand from her mouth and stood up, offering it out to her. As she reached out to accept, she noticed her own hand shaking like the proverbial leaf.

Calming down, she became aware of voices; distant and far below her, but clear enough to be heard as she allowed herself to be led to the balcony on the edge of the promenade. Her brain didn't compute the sight below her for a few seconds. A lion, standing on two feet, wearing tribal clothing and armed with a crossbow, paced back and forth before her brother and the other seven of his friends from the diner, all of whom had been tied to various support structures around the huge room below. For some reason, this didn't register as the slightest bit abnormal. The dark eyes of her companion were on her again, and she glanced at him in return, hoping he had a plan, and wondering why she wasn't panicking and freaking out as a crocodile and a shark, also walking bi-pedal and wearing clothes, strolled across her field of vision. She swallowed hard. Whoever they were, they were dangerous, obviously, and the two of them somehow had to get down there and rescue the others. She began to contemplate once again the possible reasons as to why all this seemed perfectly ordinary to her already maxed-out brain. She had reached the conclusion that she had fallen asleep at some point in the day and everything from the point of setting off for Zeke's had just been a dream, when the mysterious kid next to her began waving and flashing rapid hand signals down to the captives. Ronnie didn't even worry that they might be seen; he obviously knew what he was doing. Vert nodded once, returned his attention to the prowling lion; whom in his pacing had turned so that his back was to his prisoners; and then nodded up at them again. With an electric blue glow and the sound of electricity, four of the peculiar and somewhat primitive vehicles slid out of place and flattened the patrolling creatures, pinning them to the floor. Her companion stood up, a satisfied grin on his face, and vaulted over the banister.

Tezz landed with a jolt that would have broken a few bones if not for his shock suit, and immediately began untying his teammates. Stanford, the one he had happened to be closest to, predictably started up his obnoxious sarcasm.

"So you see Captain Kalus, that the Battle Force Five does in fact consist of eight members. I do keep trying to get them to change the name, but no one listens to..." he shut up abruptly and with an exclamation of pain as Agura hit him in the back of the head.

"What have you done with Sage?" She demanded, even though none of the Vandals; pinned to the ground by their own vehicles; were in any state to respond.

"Let them up, Tezz," Vert ordered. Clenching his fist, Tezz sent their enemy's cars flying, bringing them to land none-too-gently in a heap in the middle of the Hub. A brief glance told him that Ronnie Wheeler was still where he had left her; something that he hadn't expected, if he was honest; and he watched Kalus struggle to his feet. The more ruthless side of him wanted to keep him on the floor, but he knew Vert wouldn't allow that.

"How did you get in here, Kalus?" Vert echoed Agura's demanding tone.

"We drove through our own Stormshock portal and right up to your front entrance," the big cat spluttered.

"Your own Stormshock portal?" Sherman, always eager to discover a new technology, was curious. Probably too curious.

"Hatch's tinkering with black magic finally bore fruit, and we were able to make our way undetected into your stronghold. This is a glorious victory for the Vandals!"

"Oh, shut up," Zoom muttered. "In case you hadn't noticed, you didn't capture all of us, and now you're our prisoners."

""And I'm not going to ask again. What have you done with Sage?"

"The Sentient was forced into a state of hibernation," Kalus signalled to Hatch, who reluctantly threw the blue polygon that was Sage in the general direction of Vert. Tezz, with a greater reach, caught it before it fell short and hit the ground.

"This is my offer, Kalus," Vert stated. "Leave your Stormshock technology with us and you may leave peacefully."

"And if we do not?"

"What, leave peacefully or leave the tech?" Stanford asked, ignorant as ever.

"Then we will be forced to persuade you," Vert announced, ignoring Stanford completely. Kalus growled, and seemed to sweep the room, eyeing up his options. He had, Tezz hypothesized, trialled Hatch's tech and then, realising that it worked, proceeded to attack the Hub before calling his Hoards. As a result, there were only four of them, and didn't stand a chance against the entire Battle Force Five on home territory. Kalus seemed to realise this simultaneously, and his glower intensified.

"Release our vehicles, sub-species. We will leave our technology here for your... examination."

"Sherman, Spinner, AJ, accompany our guests back to Vandal. Take the Battle Key." Vert's eyes never left Kalus', displaying the enormous level of mistrust between the two of them, and the two kept their gazes locked until Kalus was safely in his vehicle and on his way out the door, followed by the rest of the Vandals, the Buster and Gearslammer. It wasn't until the party had disembarked and the desert doors closed behind them that everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

But it seemed that they, or Vert at least, weren't out of the woods yet. A small voice surfaced from behind the Hub's central power core; "Would someone like to explain to me what the Hell just happened?"

**A/N: Thanks for reading, and please leave a review in the box on your way out. **


	3. Chapter 3

**The usual; apologies for the gap between chapters, and thanks to **queen of games, shejams **and **The-Stupidest-Author-Ever **for leaving reviews, your comments really do help me when I write the next chapters. I hope you enjoy this chapter; it's a nice long one, and I sure enjoyed writing it! **

As those deep green eyes bored into him yet again, Vert sighed.

"That's it, Ronnie," he concluded. "You now know everything."

He watched as her gaze flickered away from him, averting her attention to another place and time entirely. For minutes neither of them spoke. It was a lot to process, he realised; the sudden knowledge that everything you thought you knew was actually... Not a lie exactly, but certainly not the truth either. He wondered if she would ever forgive him.

"So… These things have always been around Handler Corners?" she eventually voiced. Not the first question he would have asked, but still.

"Apparently so."

"I wonder why no one ever noticed."

"Look Ronnie, I..."

"No." she held up a hand, using the other to pinch the bridge of her nose; something she always did when she was getting a headache. "I need time to process this."

"Of course. I'll tell you what; stay the night. In the morning decide whether you want to stay or go back, but either way you can't speak of this to anyone."

"Stay? What would I do if I stayed?"

"Whatever you wanted. But since you know..."

She sighed, and looked away from him, casting her gaze instead around the Rec room. They had moved in there at least four hours ago to talk, and it was somewhere near midnight. Vert, despite the lack of events over the recent few days, was tired, and hoped that the rest of the team had gone to bed. On the other hand, that wasn't likely with something as big as this going down.

"I can't make that decision straight away. I'll need to sleep on it or something."

"Sure. Here, there's a spare room this way." he stood up and led her through the door, still decorated with Kalus' weapon of choice, and along the corridor to the end. "I'm just here if you want to talk or anything," he said, indicating his own room. "I'll bring your stuff down from upstairs too."

"Thanks." and without another word, she slid the door between them shut, leaving Vert standing alone in the corridor. He put his head in his hands. For a moment he had actually thought that he had made peace with her, that he could finally think of his family without that stabbing guilt that came with deliberately cutting off his connections with them. But it seemed that that was never meant to be. Now he felt just as alienated around her as he had earlier, and there was nothing more he could do to speed up the recovery.

He groaned slightly as he sank into the sofa, staring intently up at the ceiling. He had no idea what she would do. Her sense of adventure and determination, even though better suppressed, was just as strong as his own, and he knew that one part of her would be unable to resist a chance like this. But the other side; and he didn't know which of the two had the biggest reign in her mind; would choose to return. She couldn't in good conscience do what he did; just stay behind and never tell those she was close to where she was. It was an unfair offer, he knew, and he hadn't even planned on issuing it. Some instinct of his had driven him, and he didn't know what the consequences would be.

"So how'd she take it?"

Vert re-focused his attention on the room before him; a room AJ had just entered. He smiled despite himself. AJ, of all people, would understand. He was Vert's oldest friend, and of all the team, he was the one who could clear his head.

"I don't know," he confessed. "She didn't really say anything."

"She'll come around, she always does."

"I know." He looked his friend in the eye. "I gave her the offer of staying."

"Ah. That could either end really well or really badly."

"Thanks for the advice."

"No problem. I just came in to tell you that everyone wants to head on up, so if you want to avoid questioning you may want to scram."

"Good idea. Later AJ."

"Sweet dreams, Boss."

Sweet dreams. That much, at least, Vert could be sure would not happen.

A good three or so hours later, the Hub was quiet. There was no movement, and while that eerie blue glow was still being used to light the place, it felt a lot homier than before. Warmer, somehow. Maybe it was because it didn't seem so strange to her anymore. She didn't know. Her mind was still far too crowded with everything she had seen, and then all of what Vert had told her, to try and make sense of something so meaningless as why the room felt warmer. The only thing that kept drawing her attention was a faint pulse of light coming from under a panel; she couldn't see the source from her perch above the garage-style set up, but it was bright enough at times to keep fading in and out of her field of vision. Instead of becoming irritating, she had actually found it somewhat soothing, and it had helped her try and order her thoughts.

"Do you mind if I join you?" The thick Russian accent asked from somewhere behind her. Turning her head, the tall, lean figure of her rescuer came into view silhouetted against the dim floor-level lighting. Tezz, Vert had said his name was.

"'Course not, go ahead."

He swung his legs off the walkway in one fluid motion and landed with a kind of feline grace beside her.

"Can't sleep?" she asked, just to make conversation.

"A choice rather than an inability."

"Why?"

He sighed. "I suppose the concept of… what's the expression? Wallowing in my own thoughts… doesn't appeal to me."

She couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh. "Not the best excuse I have ever heard, but then again, not the worst either."

Behind the fringe, an eyebrow arched.

"Sorry; in-built scepticism. Runs in the family."

"I've noticed. So he offered you to stay," he continued. It wasn't a question, but she found herself answering it anyway.

"Yeah." she sighed. "Wait, how did you know that?"

He just shrugged. "Secret-keeping is an impossibility around here. So what will you do?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, who wouldn't want to get involved in something like this? It's not like there's another group of alien-fighting teenagers just over the state boundary."

"But..?"

"But I'm not my brother," she said simply. If he knew Vert at all, Tezz would know what she meant.

"You don't want to abandon your family," he deduced. She nodded, but he wasn't looking in her direction anymore.

"Tell me something. Do any of you talk to your folks anymore? Stanford, Agura, the Cortes boys… you. Did you just disappear too?"

"Many of the others keep up communications with their families," he said, staring intently at a point somewhere in the darkness beneath them, "Stanford, for example, writes monthly letters detailing his adventures as an American-renowned DJ. However, I understand that his relations are of the same character as he is, so whether or not they are actually read is another matter entirely."

He stopped again, offering no continuation of the conversation, and she glanced over to him. He was somewhere else entirely, she realised, and those dark eyes, her brief experience had proven completely unreadable, full of a certain pain; the kind of thing that came with the regret of actions long since completed. She had a feeling that despite his best efforts, he spent a lot more time wallowing in his thoughts than he would have liked.

"What happened?" She asked, softly, watching as he started, trying to re-build his facade before he gave away much more. She stared into his eyes, telling him she wasn't believing it, and he sighed, deflated.

"All this talk of families has reminded me of my own," he confessed. He drew one knee up and wrapped his arms around it, leaning his chin on his hands. "I have not spoken to them since…" He tailed off, not deeming it necessary to finish the sentence.

She knew what he meant; since he accidentally transported himself to that Red Sentient moon. Vert hadn't told her how long ago that had been.

"So why don't you?"

"It is not that simple."

"Of course it is. I'm sure one of your battle key thingummies can be programmed to take you to Russia and back, no problem."

"Maybe." He was unconvinced, she could tell.

"So why don't you?"

"What?"

"Go back and see them."

"Because…" he sighed with the notion that telling her was becoming unavoidable. "They think I died years ago. Returning now would be… complicated; what would I tell them, that I took an eight-year vacation? Besides, they will have given up on the hope of my return long ago."

"You really think that? No one gives up on their family, Tezz; not even super-intelligent, highly logical families such as I am sure yours would be."

"You gave up on your father," he stated, turning to look her straight in the eye. She found she couldn't keep up the gesture; his gaze was too intense. She hadn't been expecting that remark, either, and it was her turn to sigh.

"No. No, I never gave up on him. I say I did, sure, and maybe at one point I managed to convince myself… but I never did. Not really. And yours will never give up on you; not while they still remember you."

"They were not exactly the type for sentimentality."

"Well one could argue that neither am I, yet here I am."

"The only person I have met more prone to emotional outbursts than you is Stanford."

She laughed then; he had a point.

"Fair enough; I don't really know why I said that. But you should go and find them, Tezz. Even just to let them know that you are alive. You did vanish without a trace, remember?"

"I am uncertain. And I wouldn't even know where to look; Russia is a big place."

"You don't remember where you lived?"

"I didn't think it was a necessary detail during my time on the Red Sentient Moon. I didn't think I would see Earth again."

"I'm sure with all this Sentient technology you and Sage could track them down somehow."

"Perhaps. But it is not exactly high on my list of priorities now.

"So what could possibly be more important than looking for your long-lost family?"

He frowned slightly, but he was trying to hide a smile. "You place a great deal of importance on family ties, don't you?"

"Yes I do," she said, shamelessly. "And if you choose to mock me for that, I do not care."

He laughed then, a proper, heartfelt laugh that filled the whole room for a few seconds. With it she reasoned two things: that he hadn't laughed like that for a very long time, if ever, and also that she liked the sound. She couldn't put her finger on why, but she did, and found herself laughing with him.

"I'm gonna turn in," she said, standing up. She was suddenly tired, as if talking to Tezz had cleared her head and now she could sleep.

"You will return, won't you?"

"Probably. Like I said, I'm not my brother."

"In that case, farewell," he joined her standing up on the platform and looked down into her eyes. He was significantly taller than her, and it would have been quite intimidating had she not already warmed up to him.

"Come visit the restaurant some time," she suggested, knowing fairly well that he wouldn't.

"Maybe. Sleep well."

"You too."

He laughed again as she turned away from him and made her way back to her room. "Unlikely," he said after her. It brought a smile to her lips.

She woke early, three hours being enough sleep to get her back on the road, and immediately knew her choice.

As she crept up towards the surface garage she spotted Tezz; true to his word having not slept that night; deep in conversation with Sage at the computer station. She didn't make herself known to them; she wanted to just creep away. It would be as if she had never come.

She could never have stayed, not even if she had wanted to; she had too many responsibilities, too many people relying on her back home. But, she thought as she sped away from the Spectra hangar, what if she did stay? What if she pulled a Vert and completely vanished off the radar? Her mother would probably have a nervous breakdown or something, that's what, and Jeremy would never forgive her for it. And anyway, who was she kidding? She was no fighter. She wasn't gifted in any way, not like Vert's team. She was one of those people destined to wait tables in a tiny little pizza restaurant all her life; she would just get in the way, and she knew it.

One of the great things about Handler Corners was that there was a whole load of nothing for at least ten miles either side of the town, so one could manage to drive on complete auto-pilot for any given time and not crash into anything, unlike anywhere else where you would probably end up meeting a street light at some stage. This was why, when she realised that she hadn't even been watching where she was going, she felt no danger whatsoever. The edge of the salt flats had come into view in the early morning sun, and with one final sigh she geared herself for the crossover back into the real world, where mutant animals and super advanced robots only existed in the outer reaches of science fiction stories.

Without any warning, a blue cone of energy sprang up straight in front of her, immediately lifting the wheels of her bike up off the ground where she hadn't the time to even brake. Higher and higher she went, too terrified to even consider what was happening, until her brother's voice rang out in her head, clear as it had been the previous night.

"It started with these things called Storm Shocks… they look like blue tornadoes, only they have portals to another part of the Multiverse at the top. They're what we had to use the Battle Keys to shut down."

So this was a Storm Shock. Which meant…

The portal loomed on her before she had time to process what it was, and with no time to even consider turning around, she was through.

The sight that met her took her breath away.

Miles and miles of perfect green landscape stretched across the horizon, broken in places by a winding river, reflecting the burnt ochre sky like a ribbon, twisting lazily across the fields. The sky itself was home to two orbs of light that she took to be suns, but they were different from the one on earth; bigger and paler; and they gave the place a somewhat ghostly feel. They were also very low in the sky, so either it was early morning, or late in the evening. Or that was just how it always was in this place. Vert had mentioned that the conventional laws of reality tended not to apply in these... Battle Zones. Although, she found it hard to imagine that this beautiful landscape had been constructed for the purpose of destruction.

She made to swing her bike around, fully intending to head straight back to Handler Corners through the portal, but a whooshing of engine drew her attention to her left. It was the sound rarely heard anywhere outside of a Formula One track, yet all she saw was a rapidly approaching swarm of red-glowing vehicles. Another shelf of panic rose up in her chest. They must be the Sark, controlled, according to Vert, by the Red Sentients. So logically, if the Sark were there, the Reds wouldn't be far behind. Her first instinct was to high-tail it back through the Earth portal, but she had no idea how to close the thing. What if they followed her through? Vert had stressed the importance of the Reds never finding the Earth co-ordinates, and she wasn't about to be the one to hand it to them. So instead she revved her engine and gunned down the hill, hoping that the Sark would take the bait.

Alarms had been blaring around the Hub far too often lately, Tezz reflected, especially after the slow week they had been having. A storm shock had opened out in the desert; nothing serious, so long as the Reds hadn't been the ones to open it.

"Splitwire, Tangler, Reverb, Buster, you're up!" Vert called, himself en-route at an unnecessarily fast pace to the Sabre. Grudgingly, Tezz left his analysis of the Vandal portal technology running and slid into the Splitwire. They wouldn't need him on such a routine mission, and they knew it just as well as he did, but it didn't pay to argue with Vert.

The five of them raced across the desert, none of them speaking, until the Storm Shock came into view. Tezz himself was deep in thought; deeper than usual. He had glimpsed, at about six o'clock that morning, the top of Ronnie Wheeler's head as she slipped out of the Hub and got back on the road. He had been sad to see her go; she was good company, and that night he had told her, willingly or not he wasn't sure, more about himself than he had ever told anyone. She hadn't said a word to anyone, it seemed, and when he informed Vert of her departure he merely nodded and carried on with whatever it was he had been doing at the time. This had occurred only twenty minutes ago; she was, his calculations told him, at the other side of the desert by now.

A quiet but nonetheless urgent beeping from his console brought him back to the mission.

"The portal is closing rapidly," he reported from his sensor telemetry.

"Okay team, floor it. We need to lock the zone down and find out why it opened in the first place."

Obviously.

There was always an unexpected exhilaration when the Splitwire was taken up into any Storm Shock, and he felt it again, even though he knew exactly what was coming. Despite himself he grinned; even he was occasionally prone to some old-fashioned primal emotions, and nothing took away the monotony of everyday life like fighting tooth and claw with a posse of red Sark. Of course, the fight was always vastly weighted in Battle Force Five's favour, but that did nothing to dampen the rush.

He was always curious as to why the Sentients had built Battle Zones with such wide variation; sometimes they were entirely mechanical, driven by precision clockwork instruments, and then others, like this one, could easily have been mistaken for peaceful, life-supporting planets. The Storm Shock spat them out atop a small hill, overlooking on one side a lush green prairie, complete with trees and river; pretty much, if the zone had indigenous life forms, everything needed to sustain human life. The other side, only visible once the portal had closed, almost instantaneously, behind them, couldn't have differed further. Only barren rock, furnished with sparse outcrops of cliff-like indents, stretched like a black pit off into the horizon, completely devoid of life and movement… except for a group, about two dozen strong at a glance, of red Sark. Their movements were erratic; they crossed from one side of a cliff to another and back again in no logical pattern. They were either being chased, or chasing something themselves.

Using his computer, he zoomed in on the group, only to confirm his theory and ultimately create a whole new problem for the team. Without a word he sent the image over to Vert, and watched it pop up on the Sabre's windshield. Vert cursed; a rarity only seen in dire situations. The whole team were looking at the image of Ronnie at the head of the group, barely able to keep a few feet in front of the lead Sark's blade.

"Battle Force Five, Rescue Protocol!" Vert commanded without a moment's hesitation, and the team surged over the hill, Tezz and Stanford fanning out to the sides while Agura, the Cortez boys and Vert took the group head-on.

"Tezz, Stanford, focus on Ronnie. She can't keep ahead of them on that bike for long."

Ronnie, however, seemed to have other plans, for as soon as the Sark turned their attention to the greater threat, she veered off and sped away across the rock into the wilderness. One look at Stanford, up to his windshield in Sark, told him that he was the only one available to follow. He chased her for near enough two minutes; keeping a respectable distance behind; until they reached another outcrop of rock. Here she slowed to a stop and dismounted her bike, letting it fall to the floor. Tezz climbed out of the Splitwire and watched her, saying nothing. She made her way towards a section of boulders and sat heavily on the nearest. She was shaking, he realised, as her head bent into her hands and she rocked herself gently to either side. He stepped towards her so that his shadow fell across his face and she looked up, fear in her eyes that she wasn't even trying to hide anymore.

"Are you alright?" he asked. The last thing he needed was her having some kind of breakdown on him.

"Fine," she managed weakly. He didn't believe her for a second. She stood up, but evidently thought better of it because she sat down again almost immediately.

"Take your time," he instructed, judging that they were far enough away from their original position to be under any threat from Sark. "I thought Vert explained everything to you."

"It's one thing to be told about it," she muttered, "And another entirely to then actually be chased by the things for twenty minutes."

"I see." He sat down next to her on the boulder; he deduced that they could be there for some time.

"Tezz," she said, bringing her head up and looking into his eyes. "I thought I was gonna die back there. Do you have any idea how...? I don't even know what the word is."

"I understand," he said truthfully; it was a feeling he was all too familiar with, yet he couldn't describe it either.

They sat there for some minutes, neither speaking, while she regained her composure. Finally Tezz noticed her arms stop shaking, and she took a deep, if a bit wobbly, breath in.

"Okay. I'm done."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

He nodded once and slid back into the Splitwire, watching her in his rear-view mirror stand her bike back up and settle herself in the saddle.

"Vert, Ronnie is safe. I am going to take her back to the portal site," he said into his com system.

"Negative, Tezz," was Vert's response, followed by an exclamation of pain. "Keep her as far away from here as you can. The Reds are here."

"Understood."

She pulled her helmet off as he crossed the rock towards her.

"Change of plan," he began. "The Earth portal location is covered by Red Sentients."

"Hell," she muttered. "So what do we do now?"

"I don't know," he confessed. He felt a lot more comfortable saying that to her than to anyone else. "Vert's suggestion was to..." he faltered as a looming red figure entered his field of vision on the rock formation above them. He deliberately didn't look at it; better to make it think that he hadn't seen it.

"Vert's suggestion was to what?"

"Ronnie, do not turn around, but we are being watched by a Red Sentient."

Ronnie paled. "Which one?"

"I am not sure. There is no way we can outrun them with your motorcycle; you're going to have to leave it here and get into the Splitwire."

She cast him a sour look. "You really do need to be aware how fond I am of this thing."

"And you need to be aware of how fond I am of being alive," he retorted. "Get in. Now."

She had only taken a single step when she gasped, her eyes widening at something over Tezz's shoulder. He spun, arms raised to defend himself, and found himself face to face with Krytus. Fear gripped him. Krytus was the only being in the Multiverse that he was not confident he could beat in a fair fight, vehicle-on-vehicle. On top of that, this was not a fair fight.

"Well well," he growled. "What do we have here? Two lost humans. Take a wrong turn somewhere, did we?"

"Let her go, Krytus," Tezz demanded, wasting no time with the throwing around of insults as Vert undoubtedly would have. "She is not a member of Battle Force Five; you have no quarrel with her."

Krytus merely laughed. "Fool! Your entire race disgusts me. When I have the Earth co-ordinates, it is not only the Battle Force Five I will destroy; it is all of you! Your feeble methods of protection are meaningless."

"And I'm not going anywhere anyway," Ronnie appeared at his side.

The Red Sentient chuckled. "How sweet. The pair of you can entertain me when I rule the Multiverse... If you survive." Quicker than Tezz thought possible, his arm transformed into a razor-sharp blade and he lunged. Tezz shoved at Ronnie, knocking her over and landing on top of her centimetres from Krytus' sword.

"Get in the car!" he yelled, pulling Ronnie up and pushing her in the direction of the Splitwire in the same motion. Krytus went for him again and he rolled, looking around wildly for something, anything, he could use as a weapon against him. He backed up, frantically searching his brain for ideas. His eye fell across Ronnie's motorbike, and an idea formed in his brain. It wasn't a very good one, but it would keep Krytus occupied just long enough for him to make a run for the Splitwire. With Krytus advancing murderously on him and gaining ground with every step, Tezz weighed up the risks. If he did this, Ronnie would most probably kill him. On the other hand, if he didn't, Krytus would definitely kill him. He would rather take the chance with Ronnie.

She seemed to know what he was thinking, for his eyes flicked to her for a brief few seconds and he read the words "don't you dare" on her lips. But he had no other choice. With a twist of his hand, he cast an electromagnetic beam at the bike, sending it soaring through the air towards Krytus.

**Thanks for reading, please review **


	4. Chapter 4

**Woohoo, new chapter. Do you guys get as excited about these as I do? Probably not; I'm weird. Anyway, usual thanks and stuff to **The-Stupidest-Author-Ever** and **Kgirl1 **for reviews. Also thanks to anyone who reviewed a previous chapter, and the many of you who have faved/followed either this story or me since Chapter Three. Enjoy this one! **

It wasn't hard to guess what was going through that Superbrain of Tezz's as soon as the thought itself had entered it, if for no other reason than it was the exact same thing that Ronnie herself would have done in the situation. But that didn't stop the feeling of pure, unadulterated horror at the concept. His next movement would send her beloved Rustbucket flying through the air and straight into Krytus, who would probably destroy it. She had owned that bike for over half her life; she had always imagined that even when the chassis itself wore out and it became truly non-functional, she would mount it on a wall somewhere and remember it forever. Not have it destroyed by an angry red energy-alien-thing.

_If we survive this, _she thought to herself, _I will kill him._

Her resolution did nothing to prevent the extreme sense of loss that welled up inside her as Krytus went flying backwards, sword slicing through the bike with a screech that made her hair stand on end. Tears filled her eyes but she reprimanded herself; this was certainly not the time to be getting all emotional. She could mourn it - and have a go at Tezz - later.

The next thing that became glaringly obvious was that Tezz was not going to make it to the Splitwire from where he was. The distance between them was too great, and even though the bike manoeuvre had had the desired effect and sent Krytus sprawling, the Red Sentient recovered quicker than either of them had anticipated. Tezz didn't seem to realise this, or if he did, he was choosing to ignore it.

He was only a few metres from the Splitwire when Krytus caught up. Ronnie shouted in alarm, warning him of the sword. He turned, just in time to protect himself from decapitation. Instead the blade sliced down his arm, creating a razor-thin wound that immediately began dripping blood onto the dark rocks. With a cry of pain Tezz tripped over himself and went down, Krytus advancing menacingly all the while. Ronnie would not, could not, sit there and watch, do nothing while her friend - for that was what she considered him now - was killed.

In an uncharacteristic attempt at heroism, she jumped out of her seat and picked up a loose rock at her feet, throwing it as hard as she could. It hit its target and bounced off Krytus' head, distracting him from Tezz. She cursed inwardly; a blow like that would probably have rendered a human unconscious, but the fact that Krytus was not a human was one that kept being missed in her thought processes. So now he was chasing her.

She didn't run. He was faster than her, she wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Instead she stood her ground, back against the Splitwire, and watched him come. If this didn't work, she was about to die a very painful death. He was moments from her, and began to swing his sword up for the strike. Lucky for her, he raised it outwards, leaving his entire body open as he did so. Using the car's low roof as a springboard, she jumped, and placed a two-footed kick straight into his chest that sent him flying sideways and landing, dazed, amongst a pile of boulders. She was surprised at her own strength; clearly all those years of gymnastics as a kid had been worth something after all.

A pang of alarm accompanied the realisation that Tezz was still lying on the floor. She ran over to him, fully aware that they had very little time before Krytus recovered.

"Let me see," she instructed, and winced. While the cut wasn't very wide, it began halfway up his bicep and stopped abruptly where his electromagnetic glove, now decorated with a sizeable dent, began. And it looked deep. Very deep.

"Krytus..." Tezz started, breathing hard as he tried to sit up. Ronnie helped him; while it was probably better for him to stay there, they had little time.

"We need to get in the car," she told him, surprised at how authoritative she sounded over the sheer panic that was overflowing her mind. But there was nothing she could do for him here, so crouched underneath his other arm and allowed him to use her as a support in order to stand. He was trying to hide it, she realised, but he was in enormous pain, and his right arm dangled uselessly by his side. She led him over to the passenger side and sat him down. He protested, but she silenced him.

"You are in no state to drive like that."

He closed his eyes and leaned against the headrest, unwillingly agreeing with her, and she pulled the door closed.

Krytus, meanwhile, had by this time picked himself up, and now harboured fresh hatred for the two humans. With a roar, he charged them. Ronnie spun, watched for just enough time for new fear to instil itself inside her, and then ran for the other door. In seconds she was behind the wheel, door closed behind her, and hoped that with all the fancy gadgets it supported, this car would drive just the same as any other. Since there didn't seem to be any form of ignition key, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator and yanked the wheel round. With a brief spin of tires, the Splitwire obeyed, and took them both back towards the Earth portal site and, she hoped, the rest of Battle Force Five.

"Would this be a bad time to tell you that I never actually learned to drive?" she wondered aloud, trying anything at all to keep Tezz awake. She was graced with a weak but still fairly despairing groan in response.

"Please tell me that was the last of them," Spinner whined. "Because I would love to go home now."

"My scans aren't showing any more Sark in the area," Sherman confirmed.

"That's odd," Agura thought. "Why would a group of Red Sark just attack us out of nowhere? There has got to be something else going on."

"Or maybe you're just suffering from paranoia," Stanford piped up.

"I agree with Agura," Vert decided, before the two of them could argue. "There's something bigger going on here." he thought for a moment about how to go about finding out. "Sherman, how big is this Battle Zone?"

"Very. If you were about to ask how long it would take to search the whole thing, my answer would be... At least two hours. But scans show no life signs besides ours."

"Wait... What about Ronnie and Tezz? Aren't they picking up?"

"Negative. I'm not even getting the Splitwire's tracking beacon."

"Stanford, run an echo map."

"One echo map coming right up."

Vert's suspicions were reaching a climax. Sherman wasn't picking up any life signs, but Tezz had chased Ronnie a long way away from the action; he had watched them go, and then told him explicitly to stay away from the portal site until further notice. They couldn't have been in any danger. And anyway, he trusted Tezz to keep Ronnie out of it if something had come up. So why weren't there any life signs?

"Vert, I have two vehicles approaching fast," Stanford reported.

"Sherman, are you getting this?"

"Negative... Hold on, I have something. One vehicle, two life signs. It's the Splitwire."

"Stanford?"

"The other vehicle has stopped moving."

"Vert to Tezz, come in!"

There was a deafening silence.

"Saber to Splitwire, please respond."

Vert could see them now, moving towards him at high speed.

"Hi Vert, sorry, couldn't find the right button," Ronnie's voice came over the com system. Vert felt himself go weak with relief.

"Ronnie. Where's Tezz?"

"He's right here, but I need to get him back to the Hub as soon as possible. We had a run in with Krytus."

"Is he alright?"

"He's... uh... No. He isn't."

"Vert," Stanford interrupted. "I'm picking up more vehicles. Lots more. Just around the corner from the portal site. If she opens that portal, we are looking at an invasion; Sark probably."

"How critical his Tezz's condition?"

"See for yourself." The Splitwire slid to an abrupt stop in the midst of the group, and Vert jumped out of the Saber. Ronnie climbed out to meet him, and one look at Tezz, now unconscious in the passenger seat, created a huge divide inside him. "I need to get him back," Ronnie repeated.

"Hold on, Stanford. There is nothing but empty grassland for miles out there," Agura accused, staring through a pair of binoculars out in the direction Stanford had indicated.

"My echo map doesn't lie," he insisted.

"And Krytus stopped following us just about half a mile out," Ronnie said quickly. "So, they've got a cloaking thingy set up around there, whatever. Vert, if I don't get him back now he's probably gonna die of blood loss or something."

"I know," Vert snapped, a little harsher than he had intended. "Sherman, can you scan for an energy field that might shield the Reds from view and sensors? Like the one the Moby's equipped with, maybe."

"No, nothing. Which isn't surprising, really."

"Yeah, because that would be the biggest design flaw, like, ever."

"Precisely, big bro."

Ronnie stared at him, begging him to let her go. He gritted his teeth and looked away from her. He had always put the mission before the man, always. If he let her through, the Sark and Reds would almost certainly follow her through; there was no way the four of them could stop them all. And Tezz would kill him if he knew that he had risked the safety of Earth for a reason - in Tezz's mind - that was so trivial.

Vert sighed. He would just have to make sure Tezz never found out.

"Go. I'll close the portal as soon as you're through." Ronnie grinned and leapt back into the Splitwire. "Battle Force Five, prepare for imminent assault." He jumped back into the Sabre's cockpit and stood on the seat, hand poised over the Magbeam switch on the dashboard. Ronnie swung around and, without losing any speed, sailed straight through the portal before Vert thought it had even fully opened. He waited three seconds, during which time the Sark began to fill his peripheral vision, and then pulled the Key back.

Attack from the Red Sentients. Attack from the Vandals. Attack from any one of the species indigenous to their particular Battle Zones. Attack from Zemmerik, although that one was looking increasingly unlikely. Someone drove off a precipice. One member of the team is being held captive. They have encountered a new deadly race that not even the Sentients knew about...

These were but a few of the many possible scenarios that often formed themselves in Sage's brain every time the Battle Force Five went out on a mission and didn't return within her estimated time frame. Despite the fact that it had been near enough an Earth year since she had created the Battle Force Five, she still worried every single time. She trusted them. She trusted Vert and his capabilities as a leader. She knew that there was no situation they had ever failed to get out of. So there really was no point in getting all concerned over it.

But there was always a first time...

Her fears were realised with the sudden announcement from her computer that a storm shock had been opened. Her reading told her that it closed again in seconds, but that only meant that someone had come through it and closed it deliberately behind them. It could be a member of Battle Force Five; the whole team couldn't have come through that quickly; but if so, why just the one? What had gone wrong?

The fifteen seconds that it took the Splitwire to approach the Hub at its maximum speed seemed like the longest of Sage's life... And she had had some very long fifteen seconds. She rounded the computers, preparing herself for whatever Tezz had to report. She noticed the remaining members of Battle Force Five; Zoom and AJ; emerge in response to the commotion from whatever they had been doing. The Splitwire's driver door swung open...

...Revealing not Tezz but Ronnie Wheeler. Sage didn't even have time to realise why she was still here, not on the way back to wherever she had been heading that morning.

"Sage!" she shouted, not realising that she was in fact standing six feet away from her. Sage hurried over, wondering what could possibly have happened to make that much panic appear on the face of any Wheeler.

"Please tell me you have some kind of medical bay," Ronnie implored, standing aside to give Sage a clear view of Tezz, still out cold, on the passenger seat. The coppery scent of human blood finally reached her, and a level of fear that mirrored Ronnie's rose within her.

"What happened?" she demanded. Tezz was probably the member of the team she spent the most time with, the one who understood her and her technology the best. If she lost him, she would want a very good reason as to why.

The thought struck her with measurable force. Losing one of the team... She had never really imagined it possible before, despite her constant worrying.

"We had a run-in with Krytus. But never mind that now. AJ, give me a hand here!" Ronnie had crossed the car in almost no time, opening the passenger door and allowing AJ's strong frame access to Tezz's limp one. Without saying a word, he carried his inert teammate through to the room they had set aside for medical purposes while Zoom ran ahead, flipping on lights and powering up equipment as he went. Ronnie balanced Tezz's right arm over his body, preventing the blood that was still gushing out of it from dripping on the floor. A strange precaution; it hardly seemed to matter now what cleaning up they would have to do later.

The scanning equipment activated as soon as AJ laid Tezz down on the bed, providing Sage with information about his vital information without her having to look at it. The beeps of his heart rate were, although steady and regular enough, far too far apart for her comfort.

"You can save him, right?" Ronnie pleaded. Her voice had grown quiet, almost to a whisper, and her face had turned very pale indeed. Her green eyes, round with concern and anguish, stared deep into Sage's.

"'Course we can," AJ reassured her, his characteristic optimism unfaltering. Sage glanced at him. He knew as well as she did that his statement wasn't strictly true, but still he stood with an arm around Ronnie's shoulder, providing her with some comfort. He had some of Tezz's blood on his suit, the deep red a stark contrast against brilliant white. Sage wondered how he could appear so calm and collected in the face of this problem; even Zoom had gone quiet, opting to stay in the corner of the room.

"I can repair the damage caused by Krytus' blade," Sage stated, painfully realistic. "But he has lost a lot of blood. I do not know if he will recover." She busied herself with healing Tezz's wound so as not to witness Ronnie's reaction to her words. She feared that if she did, her own emotions would get the better of her. While Sentient technology allowed her to speed up Tezz's skin and muscle cells' reproductive cycles, it could not create blood out of nothing. She heard a sharp intake of breath from Ronnie, and imagined that the human was trying not to cry. Whether she was succeeding or not, however, was another matter entirely.

"There's gotta be something you can..."

"The only thing for him now is rest," Sage cut her off, turning to her now that her work was done. "But do not worry. His chances of recovery are high; he is an extremely stubborn individual."

"You can say that again," Zoom muttered. He seemed to have regained his usual colour, and even Ronnie appeared to have come to terms with the fact that there was nothing she could do to speed Tezz's recovery. Perhaps she considered the accident her responsibility, Sage mused.

"Rest, got it." She looked up at AJ. "You'd probably better get out there; they were neck deep in it when I left, and Vert could use some muscle."

"Muscle I can do," AJ declared, and dropped his arm from around her before leaving the medical room

"I will reprogram you a Battle Key for access to their zone. Be sure to tell Vert that his will cease to function as soon as I do." Sage followed him out and headed for the bank of Battle Keys they kept in the centre of the Hub. Zoom followed them, probably glad that something was once again happening, leaving Ronnie alone with Tezz.

**Thanks for reading, and please leave a review! **


	5. Chapter 5

**I am so proud of myself. Just… Quick update. Whoopie!**

**Okay, the usual thanks to **Fenrir's Daughter **and **The-Stupidest-Author-Ever **for reviews, and to the latter I would like to say thanks for the suggestion; I have introduced the magical invention of asterisks. Or at least, I think I have. But yeah, I hope it makes it clearer.**

**Also thanks to the quite literally dozens of you who have faved or followed either me or the story – there are legitimately too many to name, but thanks to y'all. **

**Enjoy this chapter!**

The Sark were coming from every direction, a seemingly relentless stream of them, all heading beeline for where the portal had been mere seconds before. It was closed now, but the Sark weren't ones to give up until either they were all dead... Or you were. Vert grunted through his teeth as yet another slammed into the back of the Sabre. Didn't they realise how long it took to re-paint this thing after every battle? No consideration. None at all.

He cast his eyes around for the rest of his team, now only four with the absence of Tezz... God, he hoped he was alright. A part of him - the more ruthless part - blamed Ronnie for the whole thing. But the rest of him knew that she couldn't possibly have avoided the situation, and anyway, she was his sister; he was supposed to blame her for everything that went wrong.

"Vert they've dropped their cloaking device," Sherman's voice reached through the communications system, bringing him back to the situation with the almightiest of thuds. He heard Spinner in the background, squealing with glee as a Concussion Bomb exploded straight into a group of Sark.

"Alright, how many are we dealing with here?"

"I don't know."

Vert's heart sank beneath the Sabre's floor.

"I'm picking up a solid field of them all the way beyond my scanning range. Totalling over three million individuals... That I can see."

"So you mean to say that there could be unlimited numbers of them all across this planet that we haven't noticed before?" Stanford sounded desperate, angry even; his natural tone of voice when the way out of a situation wasn't immediately obvious.

"Exactly, Stanford."

"Run another echo map. Maybe we can actually get some figures here."

"I can't map the entire Zone, but here goes nothing..."

A purple wave flew out from the Reverb with a ping, rushing away from it faster than Vert could turn his head to watch it go. He saw it vanish far out in the distance; either it had dissipated, or just travelled too far for him to see. He hoped it was the latter.

"Right. I'm showing a total of six million, fifteen thousand nine hundred and fifty six Sark, plus five that look like Red Sentients. But like I said, I can't scan the entire Battle zone. It's too big.

"Six million Sark to destroy before we can go home," Vert mused with a sigh. "Better get cracking."

"That was a terrible pun," Spinner complained. It brought a smile to Vert's face.

That smile faded rapidly and was replaced with a round "O" of horror as the portal to Earth sprang up again just over his left shoulder. The entire scene seemed to slow as he watched the Gearslammer fly through it, horn blaring and drills whirring.

"AJ, get that portal closed!" the command hadn't even fully formed in Vert's brain before Sherman shouted it, startling him back into real time as a single-file line of Sark swerved around the Sabre, dodged Reverb's sonic cannons, and zipped straight through the blue energy. He fought off the numbness that set in at the accidental tragedy.

"Battle Force Five get back through the portal and seal it off. Earth has been compromised!"

He led the charge towards Earth, painfully aware of the sheer numbers of Sark accompanying him and his team... that none of them had the capabilities to destroy before it was too late.

The glowing blue portal spat out first a handful of Sark, then the Battle Force Five onto the sands, before releasing yet more robots before Vert had the chance to reach out to the key and close the portal. They began to systematically pick off the Sark, one by one until none remained.

Sage stared in horror as another portal, this one a deep, evil crimson, sprang up in exactly the same place as the last, and without a moment's hesitation Sark began to pour through.

"The Sark must have transmitted the co-ordinates to Earth back to Krytus," Agura realised. Sage knew the terrible implications of her words, and from their shocked silence, she knew the team knew it too.

"We're doomed," Spinner decided, first to break that silence.

"Battle Force Five," Vert's voice did not contain its usual steadiness. "Defend Earth. Buster, Gearslammer, try to bottleneck that portal; destroy as many of them as possible before they can reach us. Stanford, Agura, we'll pick off the majority. Zoom, get out here. Take the high ground and let us know if any Sark has slipped our notice."

Without a word, Zoom climbed onto the Chopper and was already on the road before Vert had even finished his sentence.

Had she been able to, Sage would have paled. Sark were everywhere, swarming across the salt flats and yet still more poured out of the portal. The Battle Force Five, just six against the six million she knew were coming, seemed insignificant by comparison. She did not doubt the capabilities of the team, or of Vert's leadership, but the odds were staggeringly out of their favour. For once she legitimately wondered if they would succeed.

Beside her, Ronnie Wheeler appeared with ghostly silence to stand with her fists clenched by her sides, eyes never leaving the screens. Sage found her face impossible to read; most humans, she had discovered, gave subtle clues as to what they were thinking in their expressions, but with Ronnie there was nothing she could use to gather more than just the basic emotions. She knew she was agitated, but that much had been obvious from the beginning; the sounds of battle audible even fifty metres below the ground had managed to draw her away from Tezz's bedside. But Sage did not know her well enough to be able to pick up any deeper meaning from that.

An idea began to occur to Sage. She had thought of it before, but had yet to come up with a good enough excuse to persuade the two Wheeler siblings that it was a good idea. Now, she couldn't see how either of them would refuse. She couldn't ask Vert, but he had always trusted her judgement on when to bring in new members to the team, just as she trusted his. Now she was looking at one perfect such addition. And besides, they needed the extra manpower; No one could argue with that.

"I have to get out there," Ronnie stated, almost reading Sage's mind. She remained staring at the screens for a moment more before heading purposefully towards the Splitwire, the only vehicle remaining in the Hub. Sage seized her chance.

"You will be of little use to them," she informed her, perhaps a little too matter-of-factly since Ronnie's whole face seemed to point into a glare which she aimed vehemently at Sage.

"Why not?" One hand rested on the open driver's door, and there was a fire in her eyes that gave Sage a spark of excitement.

"The Splitwire was built for Tezz, to be driven by him and him alone. You do not fully understand its functions, therefore would be insufficient assistance to change the outcome of this battle."

"Just what exactly do you suggest I do? Sit here and watch my brother get killed, knowing that I could have done something to help? Because that's not gonna happen."

Sage smiled knowingly. "There is one other option."

"And what is that?"

"Follow me."

Fuming, Ronnie allowed herself to be led over to a corner of the Hub she hadn't noticed before. She could help Vert just fine in the Splitwire; okay, sure, it would probably take her a while to work out the finer details, but what did it matter? She wasn't about to lose her brother again.

"Stand here," Sage instructed her, pointing to a seemingly indifferent patch on the floor before moving herself behind another computer console. Ronnie gritted her teeth and did as she was told. Her glare never left the Sentient.

"Please remain still," came another instruction.

"Why, what are you gonna do?"

She meant for a sarcastic jab to follow the question, but whichever one she had thought up was wiped from her brain as a metal tube she had previously thought was part of the decor snaked towards her, firing a white beam across her body. She flinched away from it instinctively, but froze completely as the floor panel she was standing on lifted off the ground and suspended her three feet in the air. Nothing but the adrenaline from her previous anger stopped her from turning rigid in fear.

Her skin tingled as it registered a change in contact material, and she looked down at her arms to see her magenta leathers transforming into the same tight-fitting material sported by Vert and the team. Then it hit her; Sage was making her one of them, giving her a vehicle of her own with which she could be of better use to the team. A wolfish grin broke out on her face as the effectiveness of the Sentient's plan dawned on her.

Not even a minute passed before the platform lowered, revealing the most perfect motorcycle Ronnie had ever seen. It was small - bigger than her Rustbucket had been, but still sleek and nimble - and had every feature she had ever imagined a bike to have. She touched the handlebars lovingly. She could see herself getting to know this machine.

"Those scanners analysed your personality and created a vehicle according to what they found," Sage informed her. No wonder it was everything she had ever dreamed of; Sage had quite literally picked it out of her brain.

"What about this?" she held up one arm, indicating the suit. "What's so special about it?" Aside from the fact that it made her butt look awesome, but she figured that wasn't its primary function.

"A high-impact, G-force resistant battle suit," Sage said. "It will allow you to survive without injury any manoeuvre possible using your vehicle."

Her grin widened. "Nice."

"Before you can be truly one with your machine, you must name it. It creates a bond between vehicle and driver that proves invaluable in battle."

Ronnie tilted her head, waiting for the right word to spring to mind. To be honest, she already felt pretty at-one-with-the-vehicle. But whatever Sage said.

"Hornet," she stated at last. It definitely fit; small, fast, and if the side-installed weapons system was anything to go by, with a deadly sting.

Sage nodded in apparent approval. "Then you are ready to join Battle Force Five."

A helmet almost identical to her last one awaited her on the seat and she slipped it on, feeling how it moulded to her shape. The saddle likewise had been made to fit her - obviously - and she gunned the engine, not feeling the need to take it slow; she already knew how this baby would ride. Within seconds she was out of the Hub and back on the open salt flats, and then straight into a scene of utter carnage.

Voices carried. Especially in a place like the Hub, with its many open spaces and empty corridors. Tezz probably could have gone into copious detail about the exact reason as to why, but his head was pounding, and every thought sent spears across his eyes. The regularly spaced square lights embedded in the ceiling were nothing but a fuzzy, imprecise blur. The logical voice in the back of his head told him to look at something less glaringly bright as the Sentient illumination, so he turned his head - slowly - to one side. The metal edge of the bed he was lying in came gradually into focus, then the wall beyond.

The voices returned. He closed his eyes, alleviating at least some of the pain in his head and allowing him greater concentration with which to listen. There were two, he thought; female, one louder and more aggressive than the other. He wasn't sure if they had been the cause of his waking, or if it was merely coincidence. He reckoned that they belonged to Sage - the softer - and Ronnie Wheeler - the louder. He couldn't be certain; he couldn't hear in enough detail to pick out specific words; but Agura's voice carried different intonation, and here was no other possible alternative.

This realisation sparked new questions: What was Ronnie still doing in the Hub? How long had he been unconscious? What had actually happened? He knew that all three interconnected, and tried to recollect the events. He had followed Ronnie away from the Storm Shock, waited for her to calm down, and then they had returned...

No, they hadn't. They had meant to, but Krytus had attacked. Tezz remembered fighting him, using Ronnie's motorbike as a distraction - she wasn't going to be happy about that - and making a run for the Splitwire. The only thing he could recall beyond that was a searing pain, worse than anything he had ever experienced before, and then... The voices.

The sound of a motorbike engine made him open his eyes again, ignoring the headache as an inconvenience. It wasn't the chopper; he could have identified that anywhere.

He thumped his head down on the pillow in anger, causing the dizziness to return, but he didn't care. None of it was making sense! He needed to calm down, straighten his thoughts, and think. But he was much too impatient for that, and it would take him much longer than he would have liked to work it out by himself. He would have to get up and ask Sage.

Not the best idea he'd had in a long time, he had to admit. Sitting up brought on a spike of nausea that made him think he was going to black out again, but he fought it, closing his eyes against the room's rotating around him but keeping his mind fixed on the steady hum of the readout instruments to his right. It grew and swelled until it seemed to be emanating from the innermost recesses of his brain, until it died and once again became little more than steady background noise. He opened his eyes again then, and properly took in his bearings.

He had never actually been in the Hub's medical room before, and for some reason that thought surprised him. He had no idea why, or what he had been expecting, but he realised as he cast his eyes around that it was all new to him. It didn't matter, but the fact that he was dwelling on it so much annoyed him. His thoughts weren't focused; he hadn't been this absent-minded in... Well, ever. Gritting his teeth - more in anger at himself than any sense of pain - he swung his legs off the bed and slowly stood up.

One hand on the wall for support, he took another moment to allow the dizziness to pass. His eyes fell on the bed, and the dark red stain that had spread across one half of the sheets. He frowned. That couldn't have been him, could it? Looking down at himself he saw that he too was covered in it, the concentration being denser along the sleeve of his right arm. That sleeve was also torn, revealing a thin, pink and relatively fresh-looking scar that ran all the way along the middle part of his arm, twisting slightly at the elbow. He stared at it, unblinking. It was all beginning to fit together. Krytus must have done that, hence the blinding pain... He pushed it away; it was making his arm throb just thinking about it. It also explained the dizziness; losing that much blood was bound to leave him drained. Probably all the more reason why he needed to speak to Sage; he still had no idea how he'd gotten back to the Hub.

He used the walls for support until he rounded the last corner; there was little point in making her worry about him when he could make her believe that he was perfectly fine. He wasn't, and he knew just how stupid he was being, but his own personal state of health had never been important to him. She must have sensed him approaching, for she turned, startled.

"Tezz!" she cried, shock mixed with happiness appearing on her face. It was quickly replaced with scolding.

"You should remain in bed."

He waved away her concerns. "I am fine. What's going on?" the question seemed more appropriate than what he had been going to ask, because he had noticed during his short trek that the Hub was completely empty besides himself and Sage. She eyed him with disapproval for a moment longer before stepping to the side, allowing him access to the computer.

"The Sark you encountered on your last visit managed to penetrate Battle Force Five's defences and gain access to Earth," she stated. Tezz froze; if he had been responsible for that, he would never forgive himself. Sage continued, giving away nothing about the cause of the situation.

"The whole team is currently engaged in defending the Earth and keeping the Sark at bay." Tezz glanced at the stats readout at the top of the screen above the video feed, showing five million Sark and all five Red Sentients in the Handler Corners area. It also showed the team handling the situation very well; the two heavy-artillery vehicles keeping as many from entering as possible before allowing the three multi-purpose cars to deal with those who did, while the two scout vehicles combed a perimeter...

Tezz frowned. Two scout vehicles? That totalled seven. Battle Force Five was made up of seven vehicles including his own... Which he couldn't see in the Hub. So who was driving the Splitwire?

"Ronnie Wheeler," Sage informed him, reading his expression. "I constructed a vehicle of her own to use to assist the team. She seemed adamant to help in some way."

"So where is..?"

"I have had the Splitwire's interior cleaned," she stated, sounding like she had just sent it off to a Valet service. "The process should be near completion soon."

Tezz nodded, nothing worth saying coming to mind. The team were managing relatively well without him; the red portal had closed of its own accord now, and the whole team was grimly busy keeping the Sark and Red Sentients occupied; a task that had now fallen to Vert, Agura and the Cortez brothers.

"Ronnie, I am reading a group of Sark in motion dangerously close to Zeke's Diner," Sage said into the com system. Sure enough, Tezz watched the same group of dots move across the screen in the direction of the rectangle that was the diner. Another dot, a maroon one, broke off its previous path and followed them.

"On it," Ronnie's voice responded. "Stanford, cover that gap a second."

"Just which of you are we supposed to be listening to, here?" Stanford complained.

"The one who's talking sense," Vert informed him. "Do it, Stanford; the last thing we need is more Sark getting away."

"Right."

Tezz got the impression that Ronnie shared Vert's habit of being the one to take charge of a situation.

"Guys!" Sherman shouted, "I'm detecting another portal opening."

"Sage?"

"Confirmed. It leads to Planet Vandal."

"I HATE that planet!" Stanford yelled, and Tezz found himself agreeing with him as the four Vandals they always found themselves fighting spewed out through the portal, accompanied by the sound of Captain Kalus' battle horn and followed by at least three dozen - forty to be exact, according to Sage's stat display - other Vandals. Tezz almost cursed out loud; the team did not need this.

"Does anyone have a very clever plan?" Stanford asked, "Because I think we could use one right about now."

**Thanks for reading, and please leave a review **** ~ E.C.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys, again sorry for the wait, and the usual "Thank-You"s to everyone who reviewed... I'm afraid that it's been such a long time that I may have forgotten to save the emails, so can't remember who did… Sorry 'bout that. **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

True to prediction, the Hornet handled like a dream. Ronnie notched it up to full speed as she raced across the Salt Flats, following the handy readout display that popped up between the handlebars showing her where the rest of the team were. The bike seemed to obey her every command, the front wheel turning with just the right amount of pressure. She had gotten used to the Rustbucket's habit of sticking, but she could get used to this just as easily.

She saw them with her own eyes before a muted bleeping sounded from the Hornet - a proximity alarm, she supposed - and she cruised towards them, focusing on the centre of the cloud of dust rising above the glowing red machine bodies. The sight did not alarm her quite as much as it had before, but the whole thing; the new bike, the teenage alien-fighting task force, the killer robots; still didn't quite sit with her. But on the other hand, her mother had always told her to seize every opportunity in life...

As she neared the fight, a thought occurred to her. It was all very well Sage using the "you don't know how the Splitwire functions" line to rope her into the team, but the fact still remained that she didn't have a clue how the Hornet worked or what it was capable of doing. Zoom's bike could fly, for crying out loud; what if hers could do that too, and she just didn't know it?

Hang on a minute, Ronnie, she told herself. This bike was built off her own personality; everything she felt necessary to have on a multiverse-creature-battling machine would be in a place she would logically assume it most sensible to put it. So by that reasoning, it was equipped with some kind of long-range weapon, and the button with which to fire it was right about...

She flipped up a catch beneath her left thumb and pulled down on the trigger it revealed, sending a rain of pinkish lasers straight into the waiting Sark. She could have squealed with joy; they even made a suitable "pnew" sound as they fired. Oh, yes, she could very quickly get to love this bike.

"Ronnie?" Vert's voice came through the com system built into her helmet, startling her with its clarity. It sounded like he was actually in there with her.

"Unless there's someone who looks a lot like me..."

"What are you doing? And where did you get that bike?"

"Sage built it for me. Awesome isn't it?" she sent it on a hard turn that simultaneously took out a group of Sark, turning them into little more than a ball of flame.

"Well, I can't deny that we could use the extra wheels. Get out on the perimeter and give Zoom a hand keeping them away from civilisation. If they even get within spitting distance of the Diner we're finished."

"Gotcha." she changed direction alarmingly, trusting her shock suit not to allow gravity to pull her off the Hornet's saddle, and consulted her computer for Zoom's location. He was on the other side of the desert, keeping a tight ring around the Sark, so she figured she should put herself to good use doing the same on this end. The main concentration of them were focusing on Stanford, Vert and Agura, while AJ and the Cortes brothers stood by the portal in the centre, picking off as many of them as possible. Despite this, hundreds of them were breaking through. From her position at the outer rim of the fight, Ronnie did not think it looked good.

She almost didn't notice the red portal closing, so intent was she on her own personal fight. A spark of optimism lit itself inside her; maybe, now that they only had a set number of Sark to deal with, they could actually win this.

"AJ, Buster, focus on Kyrosys and Krylox. Agura, Stanford; you and I have the other three. Ronnie, Zoom, just keep the Sark from getting away."

Almost instantly, Spinner let out a triumphant shout, and a trail of red energy flew into the sky. One Red down; four more to go.

"Ronnie," Sage's voice found her ears, "I am reading a group of Sark in motion dangerously close to Zeke's Diner."

"On it," she assured her, following the red blips on her computer screen that grew in size as she neared. She almost didn't look up from it until she was too close to let out another volley from the Hornet's cannons. She wondered if they would ever run out. She hoped not; they were proving to be invaluable.

"Stanford, cover that gap a second."

"Just which of you are we supposed to be listening to, here?" Stanford complained.

"The one who's talking sense," Vert informed him. "Do it, Stanford; the last thing we need is more Sark getting away."

"Right."

Ronnie cringed despite herself. She would have to remember that it was in fact Vert who was in charge; she couldn't go around issuing orders willy-nilley when there was a command structure in place.

She knocked the last Sark off the sand, sending it rolling over once or twice before exploding, and was mid-turn to take her back to the battle when Sherman shouted into the com system.

"Guys! I'm detecting another portal opening."

"Sage?" Vert had to be sure before he could make any decision.

"Confirmed. It leads to Planet Vandal." True enough, Ronnie watched from her position as another portal - a blue one this time - sprung open exactly where the red one had just been.

"I HATE that planet!" Stanford exclaimed, just as the lion creature Ronnie had seen before came flying through the swirling blue energy, accompanied by the primeval cry of a battle horn. More Vandals followed, and Ronnie groaned as she realised that they were probably outmatched once again.

"Does anyone have a very clever plan?" Stanford continued. "Because I think we could use on right about now."

"Sage, did Tezz ever finish his analysis of the Vandal portal technology?" Vert asked, probably desperate for anything to use against them. Hell, a big stick would do at this point.

"Affirmative," replied Tezz himself. Ronnie nearly sent the Hornet over as she banked far too hard in surprise.

"And what the Hell do you think you're doing out of bed?"

"Not now Ronnie," Vert muttered.

"From my observations," Tezz carried on as if there had been no interruption, "The Vandals came across this technology by complete accident. Parts of it are Sentient based, but the rest is the product of tinkering and experimentation. Hatch is perhaps the most fortunate mutant crustacean alive; the differentiation perspective on this device is calibrated to the very edges of safety limits."

"In English, dude?" AJ enquired; Ronnie sensed Tezz's impatience over the com system.

"He means that had it been built any other way, it would have gone 'Kaboom,'" Sherman clarified.

"Ooohh..."

"Something like that," Tezz muttered.

"Is it possible that they could have re-built it from scratch so quickly?" Agura asked, bringing the discussion back on track.

"No. They must have found multiple of these Sentient devices, otherwise building it at all would have been impossible."

"Okay, Team, it looks like the Vandals have their hands on some Sentient scrap heap," Vert supplied, aiming for the pep talk.

"Maybe they found their way back to the Junkyard Zone," Spinner wondered aloud.

"Maybe. But what matters is that they could have any number of ropey Sentient devices on board; expect anything."

"That is... Outrageously helpful, V," Ronnie grumbled, a spear glancing off the Hornet's wheel chassis centimetres away from her thigh. She had a horrible feeling, if Tezz's recent injury was anything to go by, that her Shock Suit wasn't going to deflect pointy objects travelling at high speed with particular effectiveness. Vert gave no response; he'd learned not to argue with her over such petty things.

"You know the drill, team. Just keep at it, and don't let them get near civilization, or the Hub."

Ronnie grumbled to herself at just how pointless such instructions were. What did he think they were going to do, invite the Vandals for pizza at Zeke's?

"Buster, Gearslammer, we've got the Reds. Help kick some Vandal butt."

"My specialty," AJ practically sang, manoeuvring the Gearslammer at a speed Ronnie would never have thought such a big machine possessed straight into the depths of the Vandal horde. Not the way she herself would have done it, but never mind. It appeared to be working for him.

They needed a miracle. There was no other way of putting it. The arrival of the Vandals had come at precisely the worst possible time... If there ever was a good time for mutant animals to show up in the middle of your home planet. Vert almost swore again as Krytus rammed him, leaving a dent in the side of the Sabre that he could feel rather than see. That was the other reason why they needed a miracle; they were being beaten beyond repair and they were tired; the arrival of a new, fresh enemy was demoralising as well as tricky to combat. Each of them sorely needed a pit-stop for repairs, but he doubted that the Reds or the Vandals were going to allow them a respite break.

"Vert, I am detecting a third storm shock portal," Tezz's calm voice stated. The lack of emotion behind it almost stopped the sense of dread at his words from surfacing. Almost. Not quite.

"Oh, come ON! What now?" Spinner shouted.

"It leads to a battle zone we have previously encountered; there may be no one behind it."

Vert thought that unlikely; they hadn't been that lucky all day.

"Or there could be them;" Stanford stated, and Vert couldn't help but turn to look as the unmistakeable figures of the vehicles of Zemmerik and Zug cruised through the portal, shutting it behind them. Great. Just what they needed, on top of everything else. Krytus reminded him of his presence once again, forcing Vert to return his attention to the battle at hand. Agura came to his rescue, landing one of the Tangler's impressive wheels on the roof of the Syfurious. As Vert watched, horror rising in his chest, Zemmerik's much-used electro-whip emerged from the Zelix...

And wrapped around the wheel of the Syfurious, sending it flying through the air in a perfect arc before landing upside down behind them.

"Um... What?" Zoom enquired.

"Battle Force Five," Zemmerik stood on the rear chassis of the Zelix and addressed Vert, arms folded. "I propose a temporary alliance to rid Krytus from your home planet."

"Wait a second, Zemmerik," Spinner muttered. Vert got the impression that he was glaring at him from inside the Buster. "Last time we worked together you betrayed us and left us in the middle of a Sark warzone."

"And you, Organics, proceeded to destroy the Factory Zone and the Blue Sark army it was creating. I believe you would say that makes us equal."

"We'll hear him out, Spinner," Vert assured him. In truth, he knew Spinner was right, but he also knew that they could not last out against the Sark, Red Sentients and Vandals all at once. If he was honest with himself, he was confused, they had been fighting all day, and were still one man down. Zemmerik was, as much as he hated to even think it, a useful asset. As much as he hated the idea, it sounded tempting. Now free of Krytus, he began to manoeuvre the Saber away from the fighting. "Buster, back me up here. The rest of you, keep at them." He rolled to a stop far enough away for them not to be disturbed, but close enough that he could call on any one of his team members if necessary. He watched the dark blue tank brake behind him, followed by the comparatively tiny form of Ronnie's new bike. Vert sighed; there really was no telling her what to do, was there?

Zemmerik and Zug met them head-on.

"Organic, I understand the importance of ensuring that Krytus and the Red Sentients do not discover Sage; I gather from your expression that she is close, and as such you require mine and Zug's assistance in defeating our mutual enemies."

"What's in it for you, Zemmerik?"

"What is in it for me is that I remain alive for a while longer! I have no desire to allow the Sentients or the Vandals to take over the Multiverse; the effects would be catastrophic for all. Besides, I also get the satisfaction of foiling Krytus' plans once again."

Vert considered for a moment, conflicted. He hated the very idea of co-operating with Zemmerik, and he'd found himself doing it an awful lot recently. He was their enemy just as much as the Red Sentients were; he just needed to remember that.

"Vert," Ronnie slid off her bike and crossed the sand towards him. He saw Sherman and Spinner exchange glances. "We need their help," she continued. "There is no way we can do this alone. Maybe you know something about your team that I don't, but based on my experience, we are outmatched and tiring fast." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I know you don't want to work with him; I've read the files, I know what he's done; but it's either that or complete oblivion."

Vert turned away from his sister, deep in thought, weighing up the pros and cons. If they worked with Zemmerik they could tip the balance back into their favour, but they would be indebted to him for the foreseeable future. He didn't want that to be the case. On the other hand, if he didn't accept, he would have to face the possibility of being responsible for the complete destruction of the Multiverse.

When put like that, it seemed a slightly easier choice to make.

"Alright, Zemmerik, you've got a deal. You help us defend Earth, we stop Krytus from destroying the Multiverse."

Zemmerik smiled in cold approval, and Spinner leapt off the Buster's hood.

"Let's shake on it, Big Z," he offered. "But no going back on it this time! On Earth, if you break a handshake promise, I get to break your wrist!"

"I'm not sure that's exactly how it works, Big Bro..." Sherman cautioned, but Spinner was already approaching Zemmerik, hand outstretched. Vert couldn't help but smile in fond amusement as the two of them began what anyone else would have thought they had rehearsed for months:

"Go up, take around the back side, snake bite, piston grip, snap, slap, slap, and slide it home!"

"Alright Zemmerik, let's get to work. Battle Force Five, fall back to my position. We'll regroup and attack them head-on; they know they've got to get through us in order to take Earth, so let's not disappoint!" As he jumped back into the Saber and powered up, he caught Ronnie's despairing words over his head to Spinner.

"You seriously have a secret handshake with the evil killer robot?"

"What? Oh come on, you really had to be there at the time."

"I give up. Really."

"Don't worry, Ronnie; the rest of us did that a long time ago."

Vert chuckled to himself as he moved into position.

Impatience had never been a particular problem for Tezz; on the contrary, he knew that often the best results came from just watching and waiting for a thought to present itself. Likewise, he had little trouble occupying himself when it came for such a time to arise. But watching this new stage in the battle unfold on the Handler Corners Salt Flats was killing him; every bone in his body was itching to climb into the Splitwire and drive out to assist the Battle Force Five. He had heard the exchange between Vert and Zemmerik, and knew from Ronnie's words that they needed all the help they could get if they were to succeed, including his. The only thing keeping him back in the Hub was that he was having difficulty standing on his own feet; his wound had made him almost permanently light-headed and prone to unexpected dizziness. He didn't want to become a liability, and besides, it was becoming obvious that Sage had deliberately hidden the Splitwire from him in order to prevent him from leaving.

He sighed inwardly, watching the team square off in a solid line against the combined might of the Vandals, Sark and Sentients. It was strange how their enemies appeared to forget their own quarrels when the glory of Earth was the possible prize.

"I have to help them," he declared to Sage.

"You are in no condition to provide assistance to anyone," she countered. Tezz wholeheartedly agreed, but that wasn't the point.

"My physical state is irrelevant; the Battle Force Five needs my help. You heard Ronnie; they are outmatched and tired - any assistance is vital at this stage."

"Your logic is sound, but I will not allow you to further damage yourself because of a sense of duty. Even if it means the sacrifice of Earth."

Tezz frowned, failing to understand her argument. "If I do not help them and they lose this battle the Earth will be destroyed. How does my condition matter when the stakes are that high?"

She turned away from him as her expression softened. "I... do not wish to see any member of this team killed."

Tezz put a hand on her shoulder. "If we fail," he said softly, "We shall all be killed."

It was a harsh truth, and he regretted having to use it, but it had the desired effect. Sage straightened up, looked him in the eye for a few seconds, and pulled open a new computer display before pressing a combination of buttons that brought the Splitwire swinging down from the ceiling. Tezz grinned; it was as shiny and fresh as it had been the day it was created.

Without warning, his vision blurred and swam, and the Splitwire became little more than a bronze splodge that quickly left his vision as his legs gave out from under him and he fell to the floor. Sage's voice, distant and echoic, tried to reach him through the haze that had descended over his mind.

"Tezz? Can you hear me? Are you alright? What is happening?"

He tried to answer, to tell her that he was fine, that she should not worry about him, but his voice had escaped him and he could not formulate the words. Fear rose to the surface inside him; for someone so used to being in control, this was terrifying.

He waited. His head felt like it was turning upside down and being thrown around inside a tumble-dryer and he thought for one numbing moment that he was going to be sick, but eventually it passed. Clarity returned to him along with a cold sweat and gradual sense of awareness, and he realised he had fallen to his knees just in front of the Splitwire's bonnet. He got his feet under him and, with some assistance from Sage, stood up. She guided him over to the Splitwire and forced him to sit on the low hood. She had been right; he was in no condition to go anywhere.

"I moved too fast," he explained. It was the only logical thing that he, a man with little medical knowledge, could come up with. He hoped Sage bought it; he actually had no idea what had just happened to him, and that was starting to freak him out.

"Tezz, I do not believe you should go."

"I have to," he stated. She understood that there was to be no more said on the matter, and stepped back, allowing him to climb unaided into the Splitwire's driving seat and speed away out into the desert.

**Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed Chapter 6. Please leave me a review and let me know what you think.**

**Note to Selves: I've got some pretty big exams coming up, so there's not going to be very much activity from me for a while. Sorry about that, but I've left you (I hope) with some good stuff to tide you over.**


End file.
